The Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Maryland, College Park, seeks to forge a strong dialogue between, and within, our areas of specialization pertaining to Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. To that end, we offer thorough instruction in the diverse, complex, and globalized literatures, cultures, and linguistics of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world. Our students not only develop the critical language skills to communicate in the target language but also gain an understanding of the cultures, politics, histories, and literatures of the communities and national spaces of the Americas, Spain and Portugal.

Our goal is to foster learning, develop critical perspectives, and promote intellectual growth in our students. We teach across interdisciplinary fields such as literature, film, popular and visual culture, theatre, history, philosophy, critical theory, gender and queer studies, philology, and linguistics in different cultural and geographic contexts. We strive for the creation and discussion of new forms of knowledge and the effective engagement of our students and faculty with the world. We prepare students to become promising professionals in their chosen careers.